Prevention of Atrocities Act brings no reprieve to SC/STs

Twenty years have passed since the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 was brought by the government of India.

Although the Act vies to provide protection and eliminate atrocities against members of the SCs and STs, there has been no mitigation with annual average of crimes registered against SCs/STs standing at 33,956 and daily average being 93.

Despite the PoA Act being a premier legislation to protect security of life for SCs and STs, from 1995 to 2007 less than one-third (30.7%) of crimes against SCs/STs across India were registered under the PoA Act provisions.

On Tuesday, a national Consultation with Members of Parliament was organised by the 'National Coalition for Strengthening the SC and ST Prevention of Atrocities Act', joined by church groups such as the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI).

The Coalition prepared a status report and draft amendments required in the Act and other related Acts under the guidance of PS Krishnan, IAS (Rtd) and former advisor to the government of India.

The report was based on various recommendations of the National and State Commissions, various Dalit, Human Rights and Civil Society organisations and experts.

Participated by over 20 MPs, the Consultation called for high level Committees at the Centre and in States to review the implementation of the Act, assess the realisation of its objectives and take speedy action for effective implementation in future.

Furthermore, it urged the setting up of exclusive special courts, prosecutors and investigators for the speedy trial of cases under the Act.

Additionally, it asked to amend the definition of 'Scheduled Castes' and 'Scheduled Tribes' in the Act so as to add: all Christians or Muslims belonging to any castes in the Schedules; and all ethnic minority communities subjected to atrocities on the basis of their ethnicity.

Incidentally, there has also been an alarming increase of violence against women. A study of 500 Dalit women's cases of violence across AP, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and UP between 1999 and 2004 revealed that the majority of the women faced several forms of violence from either or both perpetrators in the general community and the family.

The most frequent forms of violence were verbal abuse (62.4%), physical assault (54.8%), sexual harassment and assault (46.8%), domestic violence (43.0%) and rape (23.2%).

According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), there has been 4,41,424 registered crimes against SCs/STs during 1995 to 2007. The breakdown of crimes include 9,595 cases of murder, 61,168 cases of hurt or grievous hurt, 20,865 cases of rape, 4,699 cases of arson, 4,484 cases of kidnapping and 10,512 cases of 'Untouchability' practices.

A large number of cases have been closed by the police for various reasons. As per NCRB, police closed a large 21.7% of cases under the SC/ST (PoA) Act during 1997 to 2007.

Apparently, out of 1,76,397 pending cases, investigation has been performed only on 1,34,534 cases. And out of this, only 97, 341 cases the charge sheet has been submitted.